About the Book

MONSTERS ARE CENTRAL TO HOW WE THINK ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION.

Join award-winning historian of science Dr Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have de?ned the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein s monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: It de?nes who gets to count as normal.
In an age when corporations increasingly see people as obstacles to profits, this book traces the long, volatile history of monster-making and charts a better path for the future. The result is a profound, effervescent, empowering retelling of the history of the world for anyone who wants to reverse rising inequality and polarization. This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters.

About the Author

Surekha Davies spent her childhood watching Star Trek and planning to become an astronaut. By the end of her freshman year there was no warp drive, never mind comfy starships. She became a historian of science instead, specializing in the histories of exploration, cartography, cross-cultural encounters, and monsters in the era from Columbus to Captain Cook.
Davies has a BA and an M.Phil. in history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps and Monsters. After working as a curator and as a history professor, Davies became a full-time author and speaker.